WANTED: I've got a parcel :-)

Sorry, it's taken a couple of days to organise the photos for this- I've never done it before :-) See, the Cooking Forum, making me learn new skills all the time :-D

I came home from working in Perth to find a large parcel sitting on the hall table (which DH, in typical man-fashion, totally forgot to mention :-) ) Woo hoo! I thought. Let the fun begin!

I always drag out present opening, it prolongs the fun (and drives family nuts ;-) ). So this parcel was perfectly wrapped for me, with three little boxes all numbered and a "Read this first" letter :-)

First as instructed, I read the letter. This was on a note card with a picture hand drawn by my swap partner, coconut-nj. How talented is that? It described the items in mysterious terms and gave the reasons for her choices. It's nice to get a letter, so rare these days.

Box #1. Ah! a Rachel Ray bench scraper. I've been meaning to get a bench scraper for ages as I make pastry and bread fairly often and this one also doubles as a scoop for transferring large amounts of stuff from, say, cutting board to pot. Score!

Box #2. Some colourful anodised aluminium beakers for using on the new deck when it's finished. They remind me so much of childhood picnics :-) Cool choice. Also some little sweat bands for glasses, how clever! Never seen anything like them, can't wait to use them. Yay!

Box #3. Large size fancy plastic glasses for the deck, another good idea as I love large glasses of iced tea in the summer. And all unbreakable so if accidentally dropped I don't have to wave bye-bye on the way down :-)

Phew! About time that got there! LOL. I'm so glad you like things. It's not that easy to choose only 3 things. I admire those who give less. LOL. Glad you like the scraper. I've had a lot of scrapers over the years and I do like this one. That's really cool that you didn't already have one. Score. Heh. The aluminum glasses reminded me of old times too. A lot of houses had them. The little sweat bands are from the fifties too and go on those aluminum cups because they sweat so much from condensation. I was sweating bullets myself after I got them and then started reading stuff about things from China and the paint having lead and such. I told Colleen that I had to run out and get a lead testing kit and they came back with not a speck of lead.. phewww...lol. Who knew you had to buy presents and keep from killing your partner too?? I liked the big glasses too. Colorful as you requested and not glass. The purple is my fave too. Smiles. Glad you like my little painting/drawing. I'm so relieved that you like your box and even more so that you had fun opening it. You were fun to shop for. You're so very welcomed Colleen!

Great summery colorful gift. Those metal tumblers made me smile too. My cousins had them at their house and we often spent a week or two at a time with them in the summer. (They're really good for root beer floats as I recall!)

Those aluminum tumblers take me back too... I think Mom got ours at one of those home parties ( Tupperware??? )... I think Mom like them because she could toss them at us when we did something bad when she didn't want to take off a slipper... LOL

Very nice colors, all in all! My grandmother had aluminum tumblers in bright colors, and I loved using them as a child. My favorites were the red-purple and turquoise ones, but I even liked the silver ones as well. The sweat bands look very practical, and I have not seen those before either.

I like to use nice plastic tumblers for outdoors, but I do not have any that fancy! Make sure that you store them indoors.

My bench scraper gets a lot of use, and I store it on one of my magnetic knife racks so that it will be very easy to reach. It has a very prominent place in my kitchen, and so I would recommend storing yours where you can grab it easily.

I love those anodized aluminum tumblers, so retro, colorful and durable. Nice to have two sets (I've been known to drop and break our plastic ones...)! A bench scraper is soooo practical...I use mine a LOT. Enjoy Colleen!

I'm glad everyone has good memories of those aluminum glasses. I am surprised that no one else had heard or or seen the sweat bands. Our neighbor across the street, Ann, used to invite me over quite a bit in the summer, or was it she just dealt with me very nicely when I'd drop by? LOL. She had tons of antiques and taught me how to use and recognize fine china, under the guise of a little afternoon tea. She's the first one that gave me iced coffee, although I'm sure all the milk and sugar she put in it helped make me like coffee ice cream when I don't really even drink coffee at all. They didn't have kids and therefore had a bit more money to spend on interesting modern things. She had the sweat bands that went on the aluminum tumblers that lots of other people had bare nekkid. I sat for many an hour on her back porch helping clean whatever bushels of produce were currently being canned. They also had a player piano and getting invited to go over to play that was one of my favorite summer memories. They're both sorely missed.

I wanted to send something for fall or winter and since that little painting showed all those empty fall fields I thought it would be good. I started to get some big winter soup/coffee mugs but the decoration on them was a bit Christmasy. Green with trees or red with snowflakes. Smiles.

I had an email about the picture so here's a closeup of it. I originally painted it to use as a Thanksgiving card and have, but thought it'd be good for this. I also figured all the tan fields might be a bit like Australia in Winter. It's one of my favorite old local farms. I'll make it a thumbnail so it can just be clicked if you want a closer look. Again, I'm so happy you like everything Colleen, even the 'drop cloth'. heh...

Those are lovely gifts indeed. Coconut, all the colors make me smile and I like the way the colors in your card echo the colors in the gifts. Colleen, I don't know how cold your winters are, but just using all those bright fun glasses should make you feel that summer is on the way. I use my bench scrapers all the time too - so handy for moving chopped things from board to bowl or pot, as well as using for dough.